ATLANTA, Georgia - Inspired by the revision of the worldmap due to the breakup of the former Soviet Union, Georgia has decided to revamp its own state’s map, eliminating over 500 communities.

“This is nothing new,” Governor Sonny Perdue said. “Maps have been revised for millennia, as political realities change. The map of the ancient world looked nothing like that of the world of the Middle Ages, nor did the Medieval world’s map look like any version of the modern world’s map. Things change. In Georgia, we recognize that.”

Among the communities that the governor has ordered eliminated from all future maps of the state are Poetry Tulip, which he said sounds “too faggoty for Georgia”; Due West; Po Biddy Crosswords, because the governor’s mother, 88-year old Mamie, thinks “biddy” is disrespectful to senior citizens; Cloudland (“too California” for the governor’s cousin Leroy); and Roosterville (“too redneck”).

Other communities that were annihilated by a stroke of the governor’s pen as he signed the executive order to destroy the towns are Dewy Rose (again, “too queer-sounding”); Hemp (“we don’t smoke marijuana in the Peach State”); Experiment; Retreat (“we didn’t lose the Civil War because we retreat”); and Boogerville (“for obvious reasons, it’s disgusting”).

Residents of the devastated communities were relocated at government (i. e. taxpayer) expense to such cities as Atlanta and Savannah, which, for the moment, at least, appear safe. Former President Jiminy ("Cricket") Carter’s hometown, Plains, was spared from the first round of destruction, but “it may go after he does,” Governor Purdue admitted. The town of Milledgeville has also been given a respite from the dynamite and bulldozers that are reshaping Georgia’s landscape and atlas, as it was the hometown of the acclaimed writer Flannery O’Connor. “As soon as she’s forgotten, we’ll probably wipe out Milledgeville, too,” the governor confessed. “The name is a tongue-twister, and it’s hard for Georgia’s cartographers to spell.”

Rand McNally, “the company that mapped America,” refuses to delete the towns from its popular road atlases. “We intend to retain them as memorials to the men and women who once lived there,” the company’s president said, adding that he thinks Governor Purdue’s decision to raze the towns was “ludicrous.” However, the governor responded, “They just want to sell their remaining stock of road atlases before making the deletions.”

Because of complaints from many displaced and relocated citizens, most of whom are the governor’s constituents, Governor Purdue has agreed to reexamine his decision to obliterate more of Georgia’s communities. “For the sake of appearances, I’ll take another looky-see, but my mind is already made up.” If the governor’s resolve remains firm, such other communities as Sharp Top, Chattoogaville, and Willachoochee may be the next victims of what the governor’s critics are calling his “cartographic genocide program.”